By now, many people know that a fringe element of the firearm prohibitionist movement called for a boycott of Starbucks beginning 02/14/2012. That didn’t pan out too well for them as within hours of releasing their PR Newswire release, gun bloggers across the United States and many grassroots RKBA groups called for their membership to help out a business being targeted solely for respecting the right of their patrons to lawfully protect themselves and their families.

Valentine’s Day came and went. Nobody was hurt, maimed or killed despite the shrill protestations of the gun prohibitionists. Now however there seems to be a bit of “gun blogger remorse” floating around.

The thing is, when you organize a family reunion the event includes the whole family including ‘crazy’ Uncle Jed, goofy Aunt Jen, and everyone in between. Yes, the annoying spawn of distant cousins from backwater NYC who married will be running around, screaming, misbehaving while the adults try to talk, “Big” Al will probably burn the burgers & dogs on the grill and it’s certain that cross words will be spoken between at least 2 men & 2 women, but no harm usually comes from it. Surely there will be whisper & gossip about someone wearing something just a little too tight.

Yes, when the blogosphere & RKBA groups engaged their respective constituencies to support Starbucks, it necessarily meant that the full spectrum of gun owners would be going out in public to get coffee - from the competitive shooters through new gun owners, instructors, Cowboy Action shooters, black powder ‘smoke polers’, duck hunters & class 3 shooters…and every other type of firearm enthusiast. You knew pictures were going to be taken as sure as the sun rises in the East. “Pictures. Or it never happened”, an oft repeated phrase on firearms bulletin boards. Some of our community might not want to see “those” gun owners out in public, nor do they want to see the pictures, but it was to be expected. Some of the gun community collected receipts, organized family outings, or group outings and did our part to spread the word.

Some of our community took pictures as well. The important thing to remember here is not the pictures, whether or not some of our community find them inappropriate or irresponsible or wish the pictures hadn’t been taken. There are several important things here.

Numbers. We turned them out and no matter what statistical modeling the extreme gun prohibitionists allege, the numbers we turned out will speak volumes more than any made up numbers the other side will throw out.

Unity. Many on our side recognized and responded to a deliberate and false attack on us.

Crickets chirping. That’s the sound the distinct lack of reported “incidents” or non consensual encounters as a result of the ‘buycott’. We’re still waiting for the news reports of bad behavior, and you can bet your bottom $2 that if there was bad behavior, the press would be all over it like a cheap suit.

Teamwork. These efforts to support Starbucks to counter the extreme gun prohibitionists sprang up everywhere on the internet so fast that there weren’t enough ‘Whack-a-Mole’ players on the other side to even think about coordinating a response. In fact, it took the wind right out of their sails. There was coordination, cooperation and a willingness to stand up on our side.

These are good things. Combined with the ever growing ranks of gun owners and firearms enthusiasts these are reasons for optimism.